Atiqullah, Mehrabuddin, Mohammed Mansor & WO Sean Mullen

Dear Mr. President,

Dr. Shukrullah Stoman found his brother yesterday, missing since December. He was among the last 3 of the 17 missing men from Warkak province. (Today’s NY Times, p. A6.) All 3—Atiqullah, 38, Mehrabuddin, 35, and Mohammed Mansor, 32—were found lying face down in a pit covered with large flat stones about 800 yards from the Special Forces camp where they had been taken. Like the other bodies recovered around the camp, they were badly decomposed, identified by family members from clothing, boots and shawls. The military continues to deny responsibility for the deaths of any of the 17 detained by the U.S. Special Forces A Team in spite of eyewitness reports that the Americans arrested them and took them away, despite a video showing at least one of the men being tortured and killed and American voices in the background, and despite 10 of the 17 bodies being recovered near the camp. The military has conducted 3 investigations and are “confident that American forces played no role in any torture or killings” but still won’t reveal the results of any of the investigations. After the bodies were dug up yesterday, family members went to the provincial capital, Maidan Shahr, to protest the deaths of their relatives and demand justice. The protest, according to the Times, became “unruly” and Afghan soldiers opened fire on the crowd, killing one of the protesting family members and critically wounding another. Provincial officials denied Afghan soldiers were responsible but a doctor at the hospital said the victims had been brought from the demonstration and were shot. We’ve trained the Afghans well, Mr. President, no matter what, deny everything and continue to deny even in the face of evidence to the contrary. The war grinds on and the “fighting season” is in full swing. The 2,214^th death of an American soldier was reported today, Warrant Officer Sean Mullen, 39, but civilians continue to bear the brunt of your protracted wars. The public has been lulled into thinking the war in Afghanistan is winding down, almost over; the generals paint a rosy picture of “progress.” Tell that to Atiqullah, Mehrabuddin, Mohammed Mansor or their family members shot while demanding justice. This isn’t even collateral damage; this is outright butchery, what all wars come to in the end, even your “necessary” war. But at least the villagers can quit digging now since all 17 missing men have been found. Or can they? How many more bodies might be buried around the camp?

Body Counts From Afghanistan: Mostly Civilians

Dear Mr. President,

A roadside bomb killed an entire family in Afghanistan yesterday—5 adults, 2 children—on their way home from gathering firewood (today’s NYT, p. A4). The Taliban apparently planted the bomb, meant for some passing American military vehicle but roadside bombs don’t distinguish between civilians and soldiers. Also yesterday, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up near a military convoy killing 2 American soldiers and an Afghan policeman; unfortunately, it was in front of a school and children were on their way home—at least 9 kids died in addition to the soldiers. Suicide bombs don’t distinguish between civilians and soldiers, either. The article continues: “In this year’s fighting season, Afghan civilians—always the hardest hit by war violence—have borne an even heavier toll than usual.… [I]n the past two weeks, conflict related violence killed 125 civilians and injured an additional 274, a 24 percent increase from the period a year before. Insurgents were responsible for 84 percent of the deaths.” War reports from Afghanistan now sound like the nightly business report or a sporting event—statistics, comparisons, percentages—reminiscent of Vietnam’s body counts. What really struck me, however, was this: “In general, civilian fatalities caused by Western forces, particularly in airstrikes, seem to cause more outrage in the public than insurgent-caused deaths.” Well, duh! We’re the ones who invaded their country; we’re the ones who, for the past 11½ years have shot up and bombed their cities and villages, kicked down their doors, carted off their men (like those 17 in Wardak province that Special Forces tortured and killed). If the shoe were on the other foot, Americans would feel the same resentment and anger toward them as they feel toward us. And the airstrikes, those damned drones you love so much, weapons of terror circling 24/7, dealing pushbutton death from Nevada, New York, Virginia… no defense, no way to protect yourself or your family, no way to shoot back. Give me a human any day, someone I can see, even a Talib is better than an MQ-1 Predator. The war grinds on and will continue to grind on long after we’re gone—well, not exactly gone–there’s the 10,000 Special Forces we’ll leave to continue the mayhem and the 300,000 Afghans we trained to help them and the drones and the CIA and the contractors… and civilians will continue to suffer and die thanks to a Nobel Peace Prize winning president and his clueless predecessor.

Ibragim Todashev and Frontier Justice

Dear Mr. President,

Ibragim Todashev had the misfortune of knowing Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber. He also had the misfortune of being Chechen and Muslim. Three strikes against him right there. The official FBI story of how he was killed in his Orlando apartment by one of their agents is so confusing and contradictory that it’s hard not to believe his father’s accusation that his son was purposely executed to shut him up although that too seems far-fetched. The official story changes from day to day: there was a violent confrontation during questioning, Todashev threw a table at the agent then lunged at him with a knife, a blade, a samurai sword, a metal pipe, a broomstick…or nothing. The agent fell to the floor, drew his gun and shot Todashev twice in the chest but he kept coming and the agent shot him several more times. There were 7 bullet holes in Todashev’s body, two (maybe 4) other detectives (and/or FBI agents) in the room and none of them fired their weapons, nor do any of the accounts have any of them trying to intervene. Why not? What were they doing, running for cover? It was one of the morgue pictures of Todashev’s body, however, that stopped me cold: how did the agent, on the floor, manage to shoot Todashev—upright and charging at him—in the top and back of the head? And then there’s the accusation that Todashev confessed during his 8 hour “interview” to taking part in a triple slaying in Waltham, Mass. on September 11, 2011, and that Tsarnaev was an accomplice, that Todashev was writing out (or signing) a confession when he threw (or overturned) the table and lunged (or ran) at the agent. An American-Muslim civil rights group claims they have evidence—sales receipts—showing that he was in Atlanta with his wife at the time of the slaying. Maybe everything happened like the FBI claims but it sounds more like frontier justice than law and order. Sort of like the military’s denials that U.S. forces were involved in the torture and murder of those 17 Afghans in the Nerkh district of Wardak province even though there were eyewitness accounts of raids by an American Special Forces A team, the victims were last seen at the Special Forces base, a video of the torture and execution of some of the men, and the bodies were buried around the perimeter of the base and in the trash pit outside the wall. The erosion of justice and the rule of law is nearly complete. Frontier justice now rules at home and abroad. Welcome to the Wild Wild West.

http://istihbaratsahasi.wordpress.com/tag/ibrahim-todashev/

Naimatullah's Sense of Justice

Dear Mr. President,

Naimatullah has been searching since November 20 for his brothers, Sediqullah, and Estmatullah. They disappeared in an American Special Forces raid on the village of Amer Kheil in the Nerkh district of Wardak province and were last seen being taken into the Special Forces base camp nearby. Naimatullah found his brothers yesterday—or what was left of them—buried outside that base (today’s NYT, p. A4). After 2 other bodies were dug up on Thursday, villagers kept digging until they found Sediqullah and Estmatullah. Like Nawab (my May 29 letter), they had been blown up and only bits of bone, flesh and clothing were left to identify them but there’s no doubt in Naimatullah’s mind that they were his brothers. They were among 17 men taken from the area by Special Forces; 14 have been recovered so far. The military denies any involvement in their deaths in spite of a video showing some of the men being tortured and killed by Zakaria Kandahari (with American voices in the background). Afghan authorities say Kandahari is an Afghan-American; Americans claim he’s a low-level Afghan translator. Mysteriously, Kandahari disappeared, the Afghans claim with help from the Americans—which the Americans deny—and the military’s sticking to its story that there’s no evidence U.S. forces were involved although they refuse to release the results of internal investigations. Naimatullah, however, no longer cares about official investigations; his brothers are dead and he asks, “If my brothers were guilty, if they were criminals or Taliban, which court proved that? Which law allowed them to kill my brothers and dump their bodies in the middle of nowhere?” This is a question we should all be asking: What gives America the right to kill anyone anywhere with impunity? Where’s the evidence Sediqullah and Estmatullah were a threat to the U.S.? What law justified the torture and murder of those 17 Afghans that Special Forces rounded up? What law justified last Wednesday’s CIA drone strike in North Waziristan that killed 4 people—a “courtesy killing” of someone the Pakistanis wanted killed but who posed no threat to the U.S.? Or the drone strike yesterday in Yemen that killed 7? And by the way, Mr. President, what law gives you the right to order the force-feeding of hunger strikers in Guantanamo? Or even to be held without charge, without a trial and without evidence? An Afghan villager has a clearer sense of justice than a Nobel Peace Prize winning American president.

Guantanamo: America's Future

Dear Mr. President,

In his column today (NY Times, p. A17), Joe Nocera reminds us that force-feeding Guantanamo prisoners continues. He mentions the newly revised 30-page manual the military put out a few months ago, the chair used to restrain prisoners while being force-fed, a chair which looks like an electric chair with shackles and restraints, the painful process of a plastic tube inserted through the nose to the stomach, the “dry cell” observation afterwards, the condemnation by medical associations, ethicists, lawyers and the UN, that force-feeding is against international law, that it is cruel and inhuman, that it is torture. (You, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who promised to end torture.) He also mentions that an anti-nausea drug, Reglan, which is apparently administered prisoners being force-fed “has a horrible potential side effect if given for more than three months: a disease called tardive dyskinesia, which causes twitching and other uncontrollable movements.” (The hunger strike has been going on for nearly 4 months.) Nocera also points out that you could transfer more than half the prisoners—the 86 already long cleared for release—back to their home countries without difficulty and that you could stop the torture of force-feeding in a heartbeat with a single phone call to the Pentagon. “After all, he is the commander in chief. Isn’t he?” Like the Guantanamo prisoners who have lost all hope, many Americans have also lost hope although hunger strikes are not part of our consciousness as a way to protest—yet. But despair is everywhere; in the disconnect with our government, with our institutions and with each other. America is broken, the game is rigged and the gap between rich and poor widens as the middle class continues to disappear. Our bridges are failing, our highways are crumbling, our planet is becoming uninhabitable, our food questionable. Our social fabric is in tatters, freedom and democracy is eroding and hope for a better tomorrow is fading. We’ve been hoodwinked, snookered and sold down the river by a slick-talking salesman who betrays without guilt, who kills without remorse and who lies with conviction. You promise peace and institutionalize war, you vow transparency and rule by secrecy in the name of national security, you preach freedom and practice indefinite detention, you promise the rule of law and continue your predecessor’s lawless ways. Sadly, the hunger strikers at Guantanamo may be a harbinger of the future for America.

Christopher Drake, Nawab and The War With No Name

Dear Mr. President,

The War on Terror has disappeared from public view even though there are still 66,000 troops in Afghanistan and armed drones over Pakistan, Yemen, and who knows where else, waging America’s version of jihad on the Muslim world. Bush called it a Global War on Terror and told Americans to support the war effort by shopping. You’re more subtle; you don’t use Bush’s name for the killing and violence against those he—and you—declare our enemies. You don’t even admit it’s a war. You weasel-word it, call it targeted assassinations, call it a fight against terrorists, call it anything but war. So it’s become the War With No Name, the first war in our history without a name, an invisible war erased from America’s consciousness and conscience. And that suits you; it goes along with the secrecy and opacity of government under your reign, the lockdown of information and suppression of those who would dare reveal the truth, the hypocrisy and transgressions committed in our name. But the War With No Name was real for a 20-year-old boy from Louisiana named Christopher Drake; he was the 2,209^th U.S. service member to die in Afghanistan. It was also a grim reality for a young man named Nawab who lived in Ibrahim Kheil village in the Nerkh district of Wardak Province. He was picked up by an American Special Forces A Team on January 30 and what was left of him—a few shattered bones, chunks of flesh, the lower half of his jaw and a few scraps of cloth—fit into a small box brought to Kabul for identification. (Today’s NYT, p. A4) His mother described the embroidery she had sewed on his shirt; it fit perfectly with a scrap of cloth, the only positive ID. Nawab was one of 17 men picked up by American Special Forces and their notorious Afghan partners, trained, equipped and under the command of the Special Forces (or maybe the CIA). The Special Forces will not admit they picked up Nawab or any of the other 17 villagers even though there were eyewitnesses. The American military has conducted 3 investigations and found nothing, it says, although they won’t release any of the findings Your War With No Name may not have much reality here in America, but it’s very real in Afghanistan and wherever we send drones and teams of assassins. Your war may not have a name but it has victims with names: Christopher Drake and Nawab and Qasim and Sadaullah and Abdulrahman… It’s a long list, part of the legacy of our Global War of Terror. And that’s your legacy, Mr. President.

Sadaullah Wazir: A Victim of Hope and Change

Dear Mr. President,
I was disappointed by your speech today. Same old lies and empty promises: we’re winning the war against terrorists; drones are effective, precise weapons that reduce civilian casualties, a key to victory; the preference is always to capture, not kill. Really? How many terrorists have your boys captured lately? One? Two? Capture is messy. Incarceration, maybe some torture, maybe a trial, evidence… easier to incinerate them with a Hellfire missile. You ticked off reasons to close Guantanamo, said you were appointing someone to be responsible for transferring prisoners to other countries but never mentioned you closed that same office last year. A heckler decried force-feeding. You were tolerant, let her shout her objection but never addressed the issue. At another point the heckler shouted her objection to the murder of 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki; you paid lip service to her dissent but never addressed why the CIA assassinated him. You mentioned all the bad stuff his father, Anwar, did but offered no proof. You mentioned that Congress has been briefed on every strike. Really? The CIA won’t even tell Sen. Wyden (D-OR), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee with oversight of the CIA, what countries they’re killing people in let alone anything about the strikes. You assured us that targeted assassinations and drone strikes are legal but there’s an issue of transparency here; the legal justifications are too secret to reveal so we’re in the dark. Most ominous, however, you said you just signed guidelines for the use of drones—when, where, how. Sounds good till you realize that just bureaucratizes drone warfare as official foreign policy. You emphasized that all wars must end. True. But not on your watch. In today’s NYT, an op-ed piece (“Obama’s Forgotten Victims”) by Mirza Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer suing the U.S. and Pakistan on behalf of some of those forgotten victims, talks about Fahim Quereshi and Sadaullah Wazir two of those victims suing for redress. He mentioned that Sadaullah, the 14-year old boy whose legs were blown off in a CIA drone strike that killed 4 members of his family (and no militants) died last year. Mr. Akbar called him (as well as Fahim and others), “a victim of hope and change.” Sadaullah never got justice, not even an acknowledgement, just a few years of pain and suffering. You said you will be forever haunted by the deaths of innocent civilians. I hope you feel haunted by Sadaullah’s death. I do.